


Aegis

by chronicAngel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Game, Anxiety, Family Dynamics, Fear, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Moving Out, POV Second Person, Sibling Bonding, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27859226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: It's not the right response, you think. You should say thank you, probably. Or you should start trying to work out the details on this arrangement because funnily enough you've never moved out before. You should express excitement that you're gonna meet one of your friends in person for the very first time, maybe, even if it's under less-than-ideal circumstances. You should be doingsomethingdifferently.
Relationships: Rose Lalonde & Dave Strider
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a frenzy on no sleep. It was beta'd very graciously by Israbelle from the MxRP Discord, who also was on no sleep. If you catch a typo or big error, please feel free to point it out to me! I do my best to remain accurate? I have most of one other chapter written and at least one more planned after that but if I don't rest I might literally die so I'm gonna conk out for a few hours before posting that. Happy birthday Dave.

TG: i need help

It's hard for you to admit. For one you're not used to even being allowed to ask for help, let alone having people who would actually do it. You've been raised to do everything on your own, to believe that reaching out is a form of weakness and that if you're not provided with the tools to fix an issue on your own then it's simply not an issue worth fixing. For two you know that just the act of reaching out for help is putting yourself in danger in a way and you have a deep self-preservation instinct that is screaming this at you on loop.

When you were 13 you didn't really realize how fucked up the situation you were living in was. You knew, perhaps, that aspects of it weren't normal. After all, you don't know any other teenagers whose guardians took them to the rooftops of the apartment buildings for sword fights with real ass God damn swords and pushed them down multiple sets of stairs in preparation for a vague "something". You've always been transparent with your online friends about your home life, the fact that your brother has porn playing in the apartment on practically a 24-hour loop and the rooftop strifes and the fact that you always seem to lose. You guess that maybe they thought you were exaggerating, or else they, also being 13, didn't realize the severity of it either, but when you started to question if maybe what you were experiencing was actually abuse, the fact that your friends had never seemed worried about it didn't help.

TT: Help?  
TT: With what?

You think that the fact that she hasn't made some sort of sarcastic comment indicates that she maybe knows the severity of the issue. It is as unlike her not to call out that you never ask for help as it is for you to actually do it.

TG: dont laugh  
TT: I'm not laughing.

You let out a shaky breath as you consider again what you're actually doing. Bro isn't in the apartment at the moment, or if he is, he's in a part of it that you don't know about which is an increasingly likely possibility the older you get and the more in tune with his mind games you get. You sometimes wonder if your entire life is some Saw parody and in the end you'll make a choice between yourself and Bro. Maybe that's what he's always been "preparing" you for.

Still, the lack of his presence doesn't magically disappearify the healthy fear of him you've developed over the course of your life. Though you think your Bro does actually love you in a fucked up way, he's proven that he's pretty shit at showing it and also proven time and time again that he's not afraid to hurt you if he thinks somehow it's in your best interest. You don't really know what he thinks your best interest is and you're afraid to find out, not that you're likely to admit that to Rose even if, for the first time in your God damn life, you're approaching her about this as a real issue and not just, at worst, something about your life that makes you cool and different ( _everything_ was something that made you cool and different then) or, at best, something kind of weird.

TG: yeah  
TG: i know

You had wondered at first if maybe John would have been more appropriate to ask. He's your best friend in the entire world (you can say entire world because Jade lives somewhere in the middle of the Pacific ocean and that means you have friends in the entire world) and even if you don't say it very often or very articulately during the few occasions you do say it, you love him.

But he's also kind of an idiot, socially speaking. He's like a loveable golden retriever of a person, eager to please even if kind of dumb. He just... says shit sometimes, and you're not sure that it's the sort of shit you need to hear right now. He idolized your Bro when you were kids almost as much as you did ("when you were kids," like you aren't sixteen and still definitely a kid and it's fucked up that you've kind of been forced into a position where you have to view yourself as an adult to survive) because not only was he his best friend's guardian but he was also this mega cool ninja rapper (okay, actually, you remember a couple of conversations where John pointed out that that was pretty lame, but before those conversations he'd always idolized him and you know he at least thinks of him like a half-cool, half-terrifying, half-lame mythological figure, the kind of mythological figure with three halves because you know that doesn't math out but your Bro wouldn't do anything at only 33% effort). It'd be hard to get him to understand the severity of this situation and harder to hear all of the "I thought you loved your Bro" and "you always made him _sound_ so cool" and "I guess I'm sort of an idiot for not noticing" comments along the way even if you're sure you'd ultimately reach a favorable conclusion.

TT: Dave, I can't do anything to help you if you don't actually say what's wrong.  
TG: you know whats wrong  
TT: I have guesses.  
TT: You still need to talk to me.  
TG: i know  
TG: im working on it

You knew that you had to actually say something eventually, you were just hoping that it would be longer before she called you out, you guess. That was a silly hope. If you wanted the conversation to go exactly how you planned it in your head down to the last procrastination you would've messaged Jade who has an uncanny knack for following your internal conversation pathing. You might message Jade later anyway, depending on how much comfort you need. Not that you'd be telling her _why_ you need it, you think exposing your need for escape to one person is enough for one day, especially since she wouldn't be able to do anything to help and she'd probably feel really bad about that, but another thing she has an uncanny knack for is putting you at ease.

TG: i dont think i can live here anymore  
TT: With your Bro?  
TG: yeah  
TG: or, yknow, in texas at all really  
TG: whole state is probably unsafe as long as hes living in it

You know you didn't need to say that much. You don't even know why you did. You wish you could delete the message but Pesterchum still hasn't added that function, basically a million fucking years behind the times, and it wouldn't matter because Rose reads at the speed of light, probably, and she's probably already burned those messages into her eyeballs or scribbled them down in one of the several notebooks she may or may not actually keep on you. She's been joking about it long enough you're starting to doubt that it's a joke.

You wish you didn't feel that way, too. You wish that it was an exaggeration but you legitimately feel like anywhere you could go in this state your Bro would find you in a matter of hours and road trip up and break into your apartment just to drag you home again. You'd have a fleeting independence for a matter of days and then you'd be back to the urban hellscape of Houston under even more observation than the cameras scattered around the apartment for dubious purposes already provide.

You aren't even confident that going somewhere else in the country would protect you, really, or that there's anywhere in the fucking world that you could go, but you think you have a better chance there.

TG: forget that  
TG: just  
TG: i cant be here anymore  
TT: What do you want me to do?  


You hesitate. What do you want her to do? You probably should've thought more about that before messaging her.

You think in your head there was a fantasy scenario where you move in with Rose and her mom. After all, you're 16. You don't think that it's even legal for you to get an apartment by yourself, or if it is then most places would be hesitant to allow it and you'd have to go through the legal process of emancipation and you just don't have time for that. (Though if you _were_ to try and get emancipated, you think that Rose's potential financial assistance would also be a big help.) Rose might complain about her mom a lot but those complaints have generally been limited to a lifelong streak of passive aggression and persistent alcoholism and not to do with coming at her with actual weapons so you think it's probably still an improvement.

Your hesitation isn't even because you think she wouldn't do it. You've always sort of known that any of your friends would put up with your presence if it meant making sure that you were safe because you would do the same shit for any of them (though you don't think you're really in a position to offer anyone a stable home life right now). Rose is like a sister to you both in the way that you two drive each other crazy, often on purpose, and communicate with each other like no other normal human would communicate with anyone, and in the way that either of you would surely kill for the other. So letting you move in with her? You have no doubt about it.

But you're afraid that you'll be dragging her into your shit if you move in with her. What's going to happen if you move in with Rose and your Bro comes knocking at her door in a few days, or weeks, or months, or however long it takes him to figure out you've fucked off to the middle of the woods in New York? What's going to happen if she sticks her neck out for you and it gets fucking lobbed off with a katana and yeah, okay, that's a bit dramatic, you've been given no reason to believe your Bro would commit murder, but you're _anxious_.

And what if she didn't realize how much it would actually fucking suck to live with you until you were there? What if she decides she hates you?

TT: Dave?  
TT: Are you still there?  
TG: im here  
TG: sorry i got distracted i guess  
TT: It's understandable. This is a big conversation. It makes sense that you would want a distraction.  
TG: no can we not do the psychoanalysis thing right now?  
TT: I didn't think that was a psychoanalysis thing.  
TG: you never think its a psychoanalysis thing  
TG: youre basically the reincarnation of sigmund freud or some famous psychologist whos slightly less pedophilic and wasnt addicted to coke  
TG: psychology just pours out of you beyond your control and suddenly youre therapizing dudes left and right  
TG: theyre all "hey" and youre all "Do our parents love us for who we are or is it out of obligation?" and suddenly its all "i dont think my parents ever loved me" and you pull a notebook and a couch out of fucking thin air  
TT: It's a good thing I'm not doing the psychoanalysis thing presently because this would be saying a lot.  
TT: Back to the subject at hand?  
TG: right  


You don't think you know how to have a conversation without ranting about something. You don't know how to have _this_ conversation without stalling. You're glad that Rose knows you well enough to steer you back on track and you're also glad that she's taking this seriously enough that she isn't feeding your metaphor as she is sometimes known to do.

TG: i just  
TG: dont know what to do really  
TG: i thought i knew what to do but then it seems dumb  
TT: It's not dumb.  
TG: you dont know what it even is yet  
TT: But I know that it's not dumb.  
TT: If you feel the need to stall more before telling me then I think I can deal with that.

You almost wish that she was being sarcastic. You're used to Rose being sarcastic, especially in a way to make fun of you, but you know that right now she means it.

TG: no  
TG: this is the important shit  
TG: and i should get used to like  
TG: talking about it, i guess  
TT: Oh?  
TT: Is your solution something that necessitates a lot of talking?  
TT: Perhaps my years of psychoanalysis have inspired you to reach for actual professional help as opposed to your unlicensed fellow 16-year-old friend whose help you actually also reject.  
TT: Is that what you need help with?  
TT: I'm happy to pay for your therapy, though you would think your guardian who also happens to be the owner of several multi-billion dollar enterprises would be able to chip in a little bit.  
TT: Then again, I suppose you would be embarrassed to ask for his assistance. Embarrassed, or perhaps afraid.  
TG: dude stop  
TG: no  
TG: maybe someday ill do the therapy thing  
TG: maybe  
TG: but thats not what this is about  
TG: youre a shit guesser and you should stop guessing  
TT: Perhaps you should stop leaving me guessing.

She's got you there.

It occurs to you that when you're living with her, -- _if_ you're living with her-- you'll probably have to go to therapy. You've always hated the idea. It bothers you enough when Rose tries to get into your head and she's one of your best friends, let alone paying a stranger to pick at all of your innermost thoughts and feelings and tell you what's fucked up about them. You know you're fucked up, okay? You don't need to understand all the reasons why.

TG: have you ever thought about like  
TG: meeting up in person?  
TT: Is this somehow related to what we're supposed to be talking about?  
TG: tangentially  
TT: Of course I've thought about it.  
TT: As I've gathered about the rest of you, it isn't as though I have a lot of friends here.  
TT: Being abundantly wealthy and attending a public school in a small town doesn't lend itself to popularity, nor does living in the middle of the woods with an alcoholic mother and thus not having the ability to host hangouts.  
TT: I believe I had friends in school when I was young, but by the time I met the rest of you I'd been largely socially isolated.  
TT: It's only natural to wish, on occasion, that I could spend time in real life with other people my age.  
TT: May I inquire as to why you ask yet?

You suck in a breath. It would be a lot of personal information to process about Rose if you didn't know all of that in an abstract sense, but it's still... touching? You don't think that touching is the right word. There's a resonance with that mentality because she's right, none of you really have friends where you actually live, with John perhaps being the most unreliant on your little group for social interaction, and even he only has a _couple_ of friends at school that you've heard about in vague terms. You think he worries you'll get jealous if he talks about them extensively, and maybe he's right.

And maybe if you spent half as much time trying to make friends at your high school as you do thinking about all of you meeting up in person one day to have a movie night or something then you'd actually have some. Then again, your situation isn't that different from Rose's, even if the kids at your school have no way of knowing that you're rich. Your Bro isn't the sort of rich person that people write about, being that he's rich from an industry that other rich people like to pretend they have no involvement with, and he'd probably reject fame anyway. But you certainly couldn't have friends over with there being smuppets everywhere and swords in the fridge instead of food and fucking death traps set up around every corner.

The internet friends have always been easier because you'd never have to explain that to them when they asked to come over why they couldn't. As much as you and Jade have talked about wishing that she could come visit your apartment from her little island and you could show her around Houston and she could geek out over NASA and probably not care nearly as much about anything else you had to show her, or you and John have talked about having a real life movie night and dedicated hours to arguing over what you would watch (you've agreed that if you ever meet you will _ironically_ watch Little Monsters with him, though you think if you manage to move out you'll have to change that plan because you're pretty fucking tired of trying to emulate your brother's shitty brand of irony that doesn't even make any sense), it's always been accompanied by the knowledge that it could never actually happen. It was always meant to be just a fantasy, or at best a half-hearted goal for when you were adults and you presumably had a place of your own. (You'd be lying, though, if you said that the realization that you could never safely have anyone other than you and your Bro in your apartment wasn't part of what helped you realize that maybe there was actually something wrong with your situation.)

TG: i cant fucking handle living with bro anymore and i dont exactly have the means to live by myself  
TG: i mean i guess i could get a job and thatd be more time not spent in the apartment but id still have to call this place home and i think ill probably fucking lose it if i have to do that because its not a home, not really, and i get that  
TG: i understand that youve been telling me that for years and i guess i was just thinking maybe... maybe id have one with you  
TT: Oh.  
TG: oh?

Your heart is hammering, suddenly. You're anxious, you guess. You've basically laid everything bare for her and now you're just waiting for her to tell you yes or no, or else give you some long complicated answer which, now that you're thinking about it, certainly sounds more in-character for her. Maybe that's why just the "Oh" surprised you so much, amplified your anxiety fucking eightfold. You're not surprised that she's surprised or startled or whatever, asking to move in with someone is a lot especially when you're 16 and they're 16 and they still live with and rely on their parent. Actually you didn't even process until this exact second that for you to move in with Rose, she'd have to talk to her mom, and now your anxiety is increasing a hundredfold.

You haven't heard a lot about Rose's mom and that which you have heard you think is greatly exaggerated (but maybe that's just a false assumption like everyone else thinking you were probably exaggerating about Bro), so you think it'd probably be okay, but that's a dangerous assumption to make really when you're about to be living with someone.

Still, it can't be worse than the situation you're in. That's the mantra you've been living by since you first started thinking about asking her for this and it's the one you're gonna repeat a thousand times in your head until you calm down. It can't possibly be worse.

TT: Why didn't you ask John?  
TG: would you have preferred i ask john?  
TT: I asked first.  
TG: its complicated  
TT: I have time.  
TG: you always say that you have time  
TG: do you do fucking anything?  
TG: do you just sit around all day waiting for me to message you in crisis so you can finally make a big breakthrough and publish all your journals on me for public consumption as an example of what happens when you put a human teenage boy in basically the most fucked up living conditions possible?  
TG: everyone will praise you as an expert in your field for cracking that maybe a guy gets a little stressed out when hes constantly eye to eye with a marionette like literally no matter where he looks like it fucking moves  
TG: things probably possessed by a demon  
TG: yeah also i know hes not actually a marionette but something about "ventriloquist dummy" just doesnt sound as intimidating get off my dick about it  
TG: i swear you get off to doing deep dives into my psyche almost as much as bro gets off to that stupid thing  
TT: Are you done?  
TG: ...  
TG: yeah im done  
TT: No, I wouldn't have preferred that you asked John.  
TT: My large preference, in case I somehow gave the wrong impression here, is that you weren't in a situation where you had to seek escape with one of us in the first place.  
TT: While the impacts of your situation upon your mental health are intriguing, that doesn't mean that I'm glad for them. If I was in such dire need of a study subject I would simply apply for an internship like a normal kid our age.  
TT: I just would have assumed you'd want to live with your best friend. That's any normal 16-year-old's dream.  
TG: yeah well im not a normal sixteen year old  
TG: you of all people should get that by now  
TG: and i love john but he can be sort of...  
TG: an ass?  
TT: I believe that's true of all of us, as well as every other human being.  
TT: Except Jade, sure, you can stop typing.  
TG: i wasnt typing that

You totally were.

Your crush on Jade is not a secret to either of you at this point, but it's not relevant to the topic at hand, really. Living with her was never going to be a viable option. That just sounds like the premise of a bad fanfiction.

TG: i dunno i just think he probably wouldnt  
TG: understand?  
TT: So you think I understand?  
TG: i think  
TG: i dont know  
TG: maybe  
TG: more than john does for sure  
TT: I'll take it.  
TT: So... living together?  
TT: Do you think you could handle that?  
TG: is this supposed to be some commentary on my deep-seated trust issues or something  
TG: rose i would literally rather live in a dumpster full of broken glass and used needles than the apartment that i currently occupy  
TG: sorry if this ruins the image of flattery  
TT: I think I can find it in my heart to forgive you.  
TT: You know this comes with 24/7 pure Rose Lalonde content?  
TT: There will no longer be any barrier to your psyche I cannot penetrate.  
TG: pretty sure therell still be more boundaries than where i am currently living  
TG: i dont think i can stress enough how badly i just need to get out of here rose  
TT: I know.  
TT: You know I would do anything for you, right?

That sort of knocks the wind out of you. It's not something that anyone's ever said to you before. It's something that you've silently understood with your friends, something you think your Bro has tried to imply with his actions even if the message has gotten a bit muddled, but it's not something everyone's ever put into words. You're not sure what the right response is.

TG: yeah  
TG: i know  
TT: Good.  
TT: I'll see what I can do about organizing your swift arrival but you might be stuck in purgatory for a few weeks.  
TT: How are you going to tell him?  


You hadn't thought about it. You think you were hoping you could get away with somehow not telling him. You're still sort of hoping that, because you're worried if you tell him you'll have to fight for your right to leave or something like that even if he'll probably freely let you go after that.

TG: not sure yet  
TG: ill deal with it later  
TG: so i can come?  
TT: Yes.  
TG: sweet

It's not the right response, you think. You should say thank you, probably. Or you should start trying to work out the details on this arrangement because funnily enough you've never moved out before. You should express excitement that you're gonna meet one of your friends in person for the very first time, maybe, even if it's under less-than-ideal circumstances. You should be doing _something_ differently. It's the best way you know to interact with her, though, and you think that she knows you well enough by now to know that you mean all of those things even when you didn't say them. You'll work on it. You have to, to live together. But it can wait.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got beta'd by both Israbelle and clyde from the MxRP Discord! Thanks guys. :)

Rose books a hotel room that’s a four minute walk away from your apartment building and you visit under the guise that a friend is in town and you’re taking the time to hang out with her. Oddly, Bro doesn’t really protest this, and you’re basically able to spend all day every day dicking around with her. It’s a lot like you’ve always thought having Jade visit would be which you don’t really wanna dig into at all. You guess you sort of forget that even if she’s like a six hour drive away from a big city, she still doesn’t actually  _ live _ in one and she spends most of her time socially isolated in the woods or, at best, doing boring ass grocery shopping in a tiny town with a population of like a thousand.

You didn’t think that 16-year-olds were allowed to have hotel rooms by themselves, but you also don’t know that her mom’s name isn’t on it or that they know that she’s not old enough. Whatever, it’s about as in the middle of everything as your apartment is, and it means that instead of spending your days cooped up in there trying to plot the big move and how to sneak back to New York with her (the plane ticket is already purchased, was already purchased before she got here, it’s just a matter of getting your ass to the airport with as much of your stuff as possible without getting intercepted) you can walk around the city and point shit out and sit in coffee shops that you can’t normally afford but that Rose absolutely can.

The first time you meet, you think that you’re probably supposed to hug or have some sort of strong reaction or... something. Something more than opening the door and staring at each other for an entire minute of silence and then just sort of stepping out of the way so she can step out of the hotel room with you. You think that if it was John or Jade, you’d have hugged.

This isn’t the first time you met. It’s the fourth, actually, and you’re ten days out from the big move. You two figured that two weeks was probably enough time to sort your shit out, if admittedly a bit rushed, and also it was about as much time as you had left on the summer (or at least as long as you had to also give you time to fill out all the paperwork for transferring to her school). She wasn’t willing to miss any school for this, fucking  _ nerd _ .

You’re currently seated at a table in the back of a Starbucks. She had wanted you to take her somewhere local and you had wanted to just get to the nearest location you could get a latte and off your fucking feet for a few minutes because you’d been taking her “somewhere local” for the last hour and a half and you’re not out of shape even remotely but it’s the fourth day in a row of this and even your feet are starting to get tired. Besides, you’ve taken her to a different local coffee shop or tea place or wherever all of the other three days she’s been here and she can deal with Starbucks for one afternoon.

You’re glad she’s paying because she’s on her third iced chai and like, it’s not  _ that _ expensive but you always get sort of nervous asking your Bro for money (he’s never said no or even acted like it was an issue but you’re worried that one day he’s just gonna fucking snap or something). He gave you $100 and told you to take her somewhere nice (read: “somewhere Texas’ special brand of shitty”) on day one and you still haven’t spent it.

“So,” she starts, swirling her straw in the attempt to get any of the cinnamon she poured on top of the drink to mix in past the ice. “There are concerns it may rain on the day our flight is due to take off.” She takes a long sip as punctuation, leaving a black lipstick smudge on the green straw.

They had black straws. She made a choice to do this, leaving lipstick smudges on the straw. You stare at it instead of her face when you respond, “That gonna delay it, you think?”

“Perhaps. It’s not especially likely. The pilot is experienced.” You open your mouth to ask why the fuck she felt the need to bring it up then, but just close it around your straw instead. Your straw is black. You’re down to just the whipped cream that was on top of your frozen mocha latte and you’ve been drinking it very slowly because you’re nervous to ask for another drink. You know you’re about to spend basically the rest of your life in Rose’s debt and you don’t really feel like adding to that so early on.

“I don’t own a suitcase,” you finally blurt, because you’ve been trying to think of how to bring it up for the last four days and you haven’t thought of a delicate solution yet and just blurting things out is one of your most reliable forms of communication. Hasn’t let you down so far in the “letting people know about things that are true” department. “I guess, like, I don’t need one? It’d probably be pretty suspicious if I came home with one or left the house with one so maybe it’s better to not have one. I’d just like to have, like, literally any of my shit?”

“Dave,” she softly interrupts, but you tumble right past her.

“I mean I’m already resigned to losing the computer and the game systems and video games and shit which sucks I guess, I mean I’m gonna miss Tony Hawk and his glitching ass, but I can cope with that because I still have my phone so there’s Pesterchum on that which, by the way, God, can we all collectively agree to move onto a more modern program? At least like download Skype or some shit. Skype would probably be better anyway because then we could all video call. That sounds fun, right? And there’s group chats and shit. Well I guess Pesterchum got the memo function, but none of us know how to use it really.”

Her tone is a bit more annoyed this time, less patient. “Dave.”

“Right, yeah, no, strike out the Skype idea. Probably don’t need to see Egderp’s stupid face every time he’s building up to one of his shitty pranks or even just making some dumb pun. He’ll get this look like he’s the fuckin’ God of humor.  _ I am John, master of wordplay, king of practical japery. _ And Jade would probably just get so excited she came right on the spot and that’d really be awkward for all of us, or maybe we’d get to see the effects of her being raised by that hellhound and we just hear this fuckin’ thumping off-camera as her leg starts going off--”

“ _ Dave _ ,” she interrupts, and her voice isn’t any louder but her tone is a lot sharper and it’s enough to finally get you to stop running your mouth for a second. You take another sip of your whipped cream in the meantime and it isn’t doing anything to settle your stomach which is thoroughly twisting itself into knots with anxiety at the moment. Call that bitch Auntie Anne’s and dip it in some hot cheese.

Despite her tone, she doesn’t go on to add anything else. You think maybe you were just starting to grate on her. You’d like to think that somewhere deep down where she’s not showing it she’s as nervous about this whole thing as you are and that she was stopping you because you were amplifying her anxiety, although maybe that’s a shitty thing to want. You’d just... maybe it’s weird, but it’d be cool if this was something you shared.

She grabs your cup out of your hand after a minute without asking, and you’re tempted to make a comment about how you were still slurping down that whipped cream but it feels out of place somehow. You don’t know how you know that it’s the wrong thing to say, but you know that it is. You don’t know if there is a right thing to say, and if there was the moment passed anyway because she’s walking away from you and toward the counter  _ again _ and you can see on the baristas’ faces that they’re honestly starting to worry. You’ve only been here for like, an hour.

When she gets your drinks, she doesn’t bring them back to the table. She does that sort of head-nod at you to get you to follow, and you’ve seen enough movies to scramble out of your chair to head outside. You’re 16 and you’re anxious and you have way too much fucking leg and getting out of any chair sized for normal people is starting to become kind of an ordeal. You hope that the average height in New York is taller but you somehow doubt that. Also, like, you’re already average height for a dude in the US (you googled it just a couple weeks ago for an argument with John as a matter of fact because dude is short, and you don’t care that you’re 16 and he’ll probably grow more, it’s  _ hilarious _ ) and you’re nowhere near done growing just yet. You think you’ll probably be bumping your head on doorways by the time that you’ve hit your peak.

“I know that this is all nerve-wracking,” she says when you get outside. Rose’s voice, you note just about every other time she opens her God damn mouth, does not sound how you had always pictured it. This isn’t really a new observation, since you and Rose and John all have phones and you traded phone numbers as soon as they caught up with the damn times last year and spoke over the phone then, but it’s somehow more noticeable in person. “There’s a part of me that considers breaking into your apartment and stuffing all of your things into a trash bag and smuggling you out like this is a cartoon every day.”

That confession gets a laugh out of you, if only a single startled huff of one that bursts from your chest and disappears into the air as fast as it had arrived. Despite the unbearable humidity (it’s actually relatively nice for Texas in late July, only the high 80s today, but  _ God _ , the humidity), the sounds you make do not literally swim through the air in a physical manifestation that you have to sort of shimmy around on your walk. Thank goodness for that, too, or you’d probably lose it. Can’t stand those idiotic fuckers hanging around any longer than they need to.

The two of you fall into one of your natural silences again and this is nice, you think. It is nice to be able to settle into a dynamic with her so easily. After a couple of minutes you note that you’re walking back in the direction of her hotel, but as stated previously, you’d been out and about with her for an hour and a half and it’ll be another half hour at least before you’re stopping in front of the building. That’s fine with you, though. You’d met up at noon and that means that it’ll be right around 3:00 when you get to the hotel so it’ll be peak “hot as balls” outside and you’ll be more grateful than ever for the air conditioning.

“Every time I think that, though, I realize that I’m probably downplaying the severity of the situation, and then I feel a bit guilty,” she admits after a minute, continuing the conversation like it had never stopped.

This startles you more than you care to admit.  _ Guilty? _ “Guilty?”

“Yes, guilty. It is an emotion I’m capable of, believe it or not.” She kicks a pebble on the sidewalk and scuffs the end of her flip flop on the concrete as she does, making it somewhat unclear to you if it was on purpose or not. “I doubt you’ll be surprised to find I’ve taken on my fair share of self-blame for this, as I’m sure John and Jade will when-- or if,” she immediately amends, as though sensing your surge of panic without seeing it, “they find out. There have been hints as long as I’ve known you, and I willfully ignored them. I should have known better.”

“We were kids, Rose,” you try to comfort, but that just makes her pause for a moment on the sidewalk so you have to pause to wait for her. You stuff your hands in your pockets uncomfortably, unsure of what else to do with them right now. You’re not really great at the emotional comfort stuff, especially because you’re still not totally sure what it is she’s upset over here.

After a moment, she murmurs, softer than you could ever have imagined Rose Lalonde to get, “That’s exactly it. We were  _ children _ , Dave.” You swallow. You don’t fully understand the implication of what she’s saying, but you know that it makes you uncomfortable. It addresses something too real, something you’ve been trying to avoid. You wonder if maybe she hasn’t brought this up only because she knows that it makes you uncomfortable. It seems like the sort of simultaneously passive-aggressive and aggressively-good-natured thing Rose would do. “We were children and you were talking about fighting on a rooftop with  _ swords _ and getting your ass beaten every day and we--  _ I _ just laughed it off. ‘There’s Dave, being silly again.’ I didn’t consider...”

“It’s not your fault, Rose,” you breathe, and you don’t even mean for the words to leave you they just sort of... come out of you. “Jesus Christ, of course it’s not your fucking fault.”

You reach out and snatch her wrist and it’s day four and you hug the closest person you’ve ever had to a sister in your life for the first time and you think maybe you should have done it earlier. Rose is by no means short but she’s shorter than you, short enough that you can tilt your head down and bury your lips and nose in the top of her hair and squeeze your eyes shut and ignore the way she’s shaking against you.

It takes a minute, but then her arms come up around you and they hug you back. It’s a little too tight, but with your friend in town Bro’s been going easy on you the past few days so at least she’s not pressing on any cuts or bruises. It’s the sort of hug that shows neither of you is that used to physical affection.

After, you two peel apart (yeah,  _ peel _ , it’s still fucking humid and you’re both still fucking hot and sweaty and your t-shirt still clings to your sides and back where her arms had pressed against it) and stand there for a second with an air of... well with an air of you don’t fucking know what but it’s good, you think. You don’t know how to proceed from here and you don’t think she does, either, so after a minute you both just keep walking in the direction you were going before the oddly sentimental pause. You stare at the ground when you walk, and your ears catch on every time her flip flops scuff against the sidewalk, and for once you don’t really know how long passes before you reach your destination. You’ve got an uncanny knack for time but you’re worse with feelings than you are good with time.

You spend the rest of the day dicking around her hotel room, dreading having to go home. Her hotel room has a coffee pot and you teach her how to make cup noodles with a coffee maker which you thought was pretty basic knowledge but apparently not. At one point, when the sun has just started to set, she cracks open her laptop and you pass it between the two of you to message John (both from her account, you’re fucking  _ lazy _ ) and it’s the first he’s heard that she’s visiting you and he tries to pry enough that your stomach flops before she cuts it off more swiftly than you could with one of the fridge cutlasses.

It’s almost 8:00 PM when you decide that you should go home, and you’ve never really had a curfew before but you still consider yourself lucky that your apartment building is only a few minutes away because you just have this  _ feeling _ in your gut that something is going to be wrong when you get there.

But your day with Rose doesn’t actually end there because at one in the morning you wake up to rummaging in your room and your heartrate spikes because  _ Bro is going through your shit, he’s gonna find your pictures, he’s gonna find your food, he’s gonna beat the shit out of you _ but when you finally crack your eyes open and they adjust to the dark in the room (it’s not hard, what with the shades all of the time basically prepping you for any night time confrontation ever, but man would you be fucked if the sun was up now because it’s not like you sleep in the things) you don’t see Bro but rather Rose Lalonde going through your closet, making faces at all your shitty t-shirts and shoving the ones she finds more acceptable into your ratty old backpack with a million pins in it.

Rose is officially the most badass person you’ve ever met. When you were little you probably would’ve said it was your Bro and since you were 12 you’ve been a staunch advocate for it being Jade Harley since she’s managed to basically raise herself on Hellmurder Island with just her and her weird dog and a million fucking guns and her dead grandpa but here is Rose in your bedroom in your apartment without a scratch. She snuck past Bro and all of the death traps and she’s totally fine.

“Your wardrobe is terrible,” she whispers to you, so soft you almost don’t hear it. You suppose you can at least thank her for being cautious, you don’t know how you would even begin to explain this situation to Bro if he were to walk in on it. Part of you thinks he’d like, throw her out the window or something, and part of you thinks he’d probably just produce condoms from the ether and throw them your way and then you’d use them like mini vomit bags because  _ ew, fuck no, you’d never touch Rose, thanks _ . “When you come to New York, I’m taking you shopping.”

Your anxiety spikes again when she says the New York thing out loud in the apartment even if she’s speaking in a tone that only ants and your panicked ass can hear and even if you’re like 99.7% sure you’ve cleared out every camera from your bedroom because this is  _ not a safe place to talk about this shit, none of this was in the fucking plan, Rose, what the fuck _ . You’d point that out to her out loud if you could breathe but your chest is tighter than a chastity belt’s grip on some poor Catholic kid’s blue balls.

And you didn’t think you could get any more anxious but somehow you achieve even that top-tier level of pure feral terror and you could probably start salivating and growling and making your hair stand up on end when she bends down and picks up one of your polaroids off of the floor of your closet. All of the interests you’ve found too lame and embarrassing to share with your friends are suddenly on display to her, you realize, and maybe this shouldn’t be freaking you out so much because you were going to move in with her, she was going to find out about them, but there’s no room for that rational thought to make itself known to you around the screaming muppet asshole at the forefront of your brain or his gaggle of quieter and yet even more cartoonishly horrified pals. Your mind is basically at maximum capacity for thoughts and none of them are rational or even using words at all really and--

“This is really good,” she murmurs, looking over the photo approvingly. It eases your anxiety a little bit, sets you back to regular mental breakdown from fucking foaming at the mouth. Either way, your panic must still be clearly visible in the dark because she looks up from the polaroid to your face and sort of freezes like a deer in the headlights, or like a therapist confronted with the fact that they’ve just traumatized their patient even further. With the sun having been down for several hours, the temperature has settled down to a nice 74 and she’s wearing one of those pullover hoodies with the big front pocket, and you watch her tuck the photo into it before she sits on the bed in front of you, her hands settling on your knees. You imagine they’re cold, but you can’t actually tell through the blanket.

“You’re here,” you eventually manage to wheeze, and man you wish that was an exaggeration but no, seriously, you basically just exhaled those words more than you said them. You’re terrified to raise your voice too loud and wake up Bro and your chest is still too tight to really inhale any real amount of air that you could use to speak with so if you were making fun of her for talking quietly earlier (which you weren’t, really, but mentally reviewing your phrasing on that thing you didn’t say out loud you guess it maybe came across that way) you’re a huge fucking hypocrite now. You’re kind of a huge hypocrite all of the time, though, so you guess that’s okay. “Like you’re in my bedroom, in my apartment, sifting through my closet with all my personal belongings  _ here _ , Lalonde, what the fuck?”

Perhaps the most startling thing, or at least the funniest thing, is that the backpack that she is shoving clothes and stuff into for you is  _ yours _ . She didn’t, like, bring a bag for you or anything, must have just broken into your apartment and then realized she forgot to bring one and dug around in your room while you slept for something she could use.

“You couldn’t very well sneak out with it yourself,” she points out, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and you’re an idiot for not putting it together yourself, although she kind of always talks that way. And you guess she’s  _ right _ but that doesn’t really clear up any of the confusion. In the best case scenario, Bro doesn’t notice your piles of half-clean laundry have become much more slim-pickings, and yeah, you really don’t believe  _ that’s _ going to happen. Maybe the realistic best case scenario is that he notices and just doesn’t say anything, and honestly, that’s kind of likely since he doesn’t really  _ talk _ to you about jack shit, just lets it build up and build up until eventually you have to confront it and usually that confrontation winds up being a physical one.

“At least let me see which ones you’re packing,” you eventually murmur, when she just sort of looks at you in the dark for a while. You think she’s probably staring at your eyes and you’d be upset about it if you had the energy to care but the last few days have just been exposure after exposure and in the grand scheme of things this seems like a relatively small one. You wonder if, once you’re living together, you’ll ditch the shades in the house. You’ll still have to wear them outside, your photosensitivity doesn’t take too keenly to the sun and you think it’ll probably be worse in a place like New York that actually sees snow and ice AKA the sun’s pocket mirrors that it fixes up its makeup in, but you doubt it’s all that bright in a mansion in the woods.

She passes you the backpack wordlessly and you undo all of her progress by dumping it out onto your bed. She didn’t make that much progress, you’re a pretty light sleeper, but there are three shirts that had been neatly folded up before which tumble out now: The record scratch shirt you wore constantly when you were 13 doesn’t really fit you anymore, you’ve grown kind of tall for it and the bottom of your stomach is exposed in a way that makes you uncomfortable, but you know that your friends fall victim to nostalgia much more than you do. A Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff t-shirt, something you designed on a whim when you considered making merch so you could actually get some money from the shitty comic and maybe it could contribute to your freedom one day, but you never really followed through. In true SBaHJ fashion, it’s just drawn on a white t-shirt with fabric markers and it looks fucking awful. It’s a more recent addition to your wardrobe, so at least it’ll fit better than the record scratch shirt, you guess.

There’s a sweater in there too, even though it’s the middle of fucking July and also Texas. It had been a gift from her to you on your last birthday despite your pointing out that it was Texas and it was 65 on the day that you received it. (That’s chilly for you, though, because you’ve lived here your whole life. You’re gonna freeze your balls off in New York. Good thing you have the sweater.) She knitted it for you, and it’s the only thing that’s always neatly hung in the closet.

“These are a good start, but it’s missing a sorta  _ je ne sais quoi _ , y’know?” You murmur, and it feels impossibly loud because of how quiet the rest of the room is. You’re more embarrassed about the fact that you passed out in the jeans and shirt you were wearing during the day than you would be if she was seeing you in pajamas or your underwear, but you get out of bed anyway to start grabbing your favorites of your shirts. You don’t fold them up like she did, just sort of toss them into the bag, and eventually she gets up and joins you and then it’s a hilarious mish-mash of folded shirts and jeans and crumpled up ones. Maybe if you’d folded them you’d have more room, but as it stands you probably get like, a week’s worth of clothes in there before you can’t cram anything in anymore. (It takes both of you to get the zipper to close, her holding the two halves of the opening as close together as possible while you drag the zipper closed despite its protests.) It doesn’t even take that long, maybe fifteen minutes of silent dedication. You guess maybe Bro won’t notice after all considering it’s not as much of a dent as you were hoping to make.

She pulls the backpack on which looks sort of silly because it’s all puffy and overstuffed. You’re only able to contain your snickers because you’re still sort of anxious.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Her hands are holding the straps, and you stare at her for a second, the two of you divided by like two feet of space as she sort of lingers awkwardly by the door to your bedroom. You have silently agreed that you’re gonna split here, because both of you trying to creep through the apartment is even more likely to raise suspicion than just her doing it. Also, if you’re bumbling around each other you’re more likely to stumble into something unpleasant, that’s just like, a statistical fact. It means you have to say goodbye here. You feel like maybe you should hug her.

After a second, you just sort of reach out with a hand in the dark and land it on top of her head, ruffling her hair. Good enough. “See ya.”


End file.
